And the winners are...

We just announced the 2017 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize shortlist, and now we’re thrilled to congratulate the winners of this year’s Aimia | AGO Photography Prize Scholarship Program.

The scholarship, which was inaugurated in 2013, recognizes three full-time students—Canadian or international—who are entering their final year of study toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a focus or major in photography at one of 15 participating post-secondary institutions across Canada. From a list of more than 100 applicants this year, which was then whittled down to 15 finalists, the jury has awarded the scholarship to Seamus Gallagher of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD), Curtiss Randolph of Ryerson University, and Alessandro Seccareccia of Concordia University. The winners each receive $7,000 toward tuition for their final year of undergraduate study.

This year’s jury included:

• Sandra Brewster, multidisciplinary artist
• Julie Crooks, Assistant Curator, Photography, AGO
• Sophie Hackett, Curator, Photography, AGO

According to the jury, “The calibre of the 15 national finalists was impressive. Of this group, Seamus, Curtiss, and Alessandro stood out for their strong grasp of the possibilities of the medium and their conceptual maturity: Seamus’s playfulness and material exploration, Curtiss’s richly developed sense of drama and performance and Alessandro’s evocative ability to capture the grit of the everyday. We look forward to seeing more from these emerging artists in the years to come.”

Learn more about this year’s winners below.

Seamus Gallagher, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD), Nova Scotia

Seamus Gallagher is an artist from Moncton, New Brunswick. His works largely engages with self-identity, queerness and hyper-performativity in day-to-day life. Through digital photography, installation and new media, his playful and tongue-in-cheek mannerisms explore an introspective personal dialogue through a critical lens.

Curtiss Randolph, Ryerson University, Ontario

Curtiss Randolph was born in Toronto and is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography at Ryerson. Curtiss constructs scenes as either tableau or staged documentary narratives and merges realism, surrealism and gonzo journalism together. Having grown up in a theatre, the elements of stage production crept into his working process early on and helped set a foundation for his work. Using the viewers’ preconceived notion of documentary-style images to his advantage, Curtiss is able to question ideas of fact and fiction in the photographic medium.

Alessandro M. Seccareccia, Concordia University, Quebec

Alessandro M. Seccareccia is a Canadian of Italian descent from Gatineau, Quebec. He is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography at Concordia. Alessandro is a documentary photographer whose work is both a visual and poetic response to his social surroundings. His work gravitates around the idea of socio-economic rejection by documenting some of the most remote parts of Canada as well as the world, including disparate communities in central Asia. Some of his work is permanently displayed at the Carleton University Library in Ottawa and he has participated in several group exhibitions in both Montreal and Ottawa.

Congratulations to this year’s scholarship winners!  We expect we’ll see great things from them in the future.

The 2017 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize exhibition opens September 6. For updates, make sure to follow us on our Facebook page and @AimiaAGOPrize on Twitter.

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The AGO acknowledges the generous support of Aimia, Founding Partner of the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize.